Zinke seeks to explain meeting with Halliburton chairman

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke sought Wednesday to explain his role in a real estate deal involving a nonprofit he launched and developers backed by the chairman of Halliburton, a major energy company with extensive business before his department.

In his first public comments on the deal since it was first reported by POLITICO last week, Zinke acknowledged meeting with Halliburton Chairman Dave Lesar and other developers in his Interior Department office, but said his involvement was limited to providing them background on the nonprofit and the land it owned, which had been donated by BNSF Railway years earlier. The developers all live in or near Whitefish, Mont., the secretary's hometown where the development would be built.

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"And then Dave Lesar and his son, who is developing a piece of property next door, they don't understand, when they had the property, actually, the Veterans Peace Park owns the lot next door. So they come and say, 'Hey, what's the background?'" Zinke said on Voices of Montana, a talk radio program broadcast throughout the state,referring to the August 2017 meeting. He added,"We go out to dinner. We talk about the background of the park. What are the neighbors like. What was the vision of the park. Where the boundaries are. Where the water table is, because the water table has changed over time. What the railroad is. So they have the background."

About a month after that meeting, Lola Zinke, the secretary's wife and now president of the foundation, signed a letter of intent to allow the developers to build a parking lot on its land in Whitefish, a move that could increase property values for parcels the Zinkes own nearby and that a city planner said could result in Zinke running a microbrewery on the site. Zinke did not address the microbrewery or his other real estate holdings in Whitefish on the radio program Wednesday.

House Democrats are calling for Interior’s inspector general to investigate whether the deal may have violated conflict of interest rules. Zinke’s role at Interior places him as one of the chief regulators overseeing oil and gas drilling activities, including those performed by Halliburton, one of the world’s largest fracking and offshore drilling services companies. The inspector general's office is looking into the lawmakers' request before determining whether to launch a full investigation, a spokesperson for the internal watchdog told POLITICO Wednesday.

Zinke launched the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation after receiving his first donation of railroad land from BNSF in 2008. The land remains largely undeveloped, but Zinke told the Montana radio host Wednesday that his foundation has "added 27,000 tons of material. We've redone roads. We groom it."

In the interview, Zinke said he resigned from the park foundation board after joining Interior. He told POLITICO earlier that he had no involvement in the park’s business, though one of the developers in question, Casey Malmquist, said he visited Zinke in Washington, D.C., in August to discuss the development plans. Malmquist also emailed project development maps to Zinke, according to Interior emails.

Zinke attacked reports on the project without disputing any particular details.

"Clearly, I'm not on the board anymore. My wife runs the board. And they make a letter of intent for my wife that, you know what, the community is for this project, the city approves it, it's a good project for Whitefish, we'll share some parking lots with you. That's it. And this nefarious reporter comes to Whitefish — my hometown — lies to the city on record, lies to the developer on record, takes pictures of an inner tube in the park, and promulgates this story that somehow it's about Interior and Halliburton. This is exactly what's wrong with the press, and the president has it right. It's fake news. It's knowing, it's willing, to willingly promulgate fake news.”

An Interior spokesperson did not immediately reply to questions. Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift has said in the past that the matter was not a department issue.